RADIOLAB: Chris and Lisa

Here's an interesting new twist on an old story...

Remember when I was interviewed by RadioLab?
And they turned it into audio for use on pledge drives?

Well, this week, it's been turned into a podcast supplemental for all RadioLab subscribers everywhere. Although I haven't updated my Itunes today, I suspect that it's on my computer, waiting to be automatically added to my own ipod. A story that I told the RadioLab guys about me and Lisa, which originally was to used by pledge drives across the country, will now be available to all RadioLab listeners anywhere, with no discernible end in sight.

Which is different.
Not bad.
Just different.

For example, it's different that people can now comment about it on the RadioLab site. Which means, by extension, they can comment about me on the RadioLab website. Although, I suspect that there's nothing there to really trash me about, it still feels a little odd to have one's private feelings and experience, flapping in the wind for public consumption.

Also, consider this, I give enough information in that podcast to Google-search and find the actual me. My first name. My job title. The type of place where I work. A specific show that I performed in. An intrepid radio listener could Google that information and find me pretty easily. Including my work email address. And theaters where I can work. Again, I don't think that there's anything in there that would cause someone to actually seek me out. But the possibility is out there.

That sensation. The sensation that my story is now open for wide consumption, comment and possible contact is the "difference" that I mentioned earlier. Increased exposure. And all that that implies.

I doubt anything will come of it. I know friends who listen to RadioLab. They'll probably hear the story now, if they didn't before. I might get an email from someone saying, "Hey, was that you on RadioLab?" But I doubt that interest will go much further than that.

EDITED TO ADD: Well, there was SOME discussion about it, all generally pleasant over on CIN, today. You can see it by clicking here.

Or maybe it will lead to Lisa and I talking again, after nearly 8 months of total silence. I can't judge if that's something that I'm ready for. Or if it's something that she would have any interest in, at all. Who knows?

Maybe this transition from private story to modestly broadcast story for a limited audiences to wide-open, endless public consumption is a natural adaption to make. Maybe it's a necessary side-effect as I evolve from who I am now to who I am going to become, as I move forward. Sure, there's something a little bit vain and a little bit sadistic about offering oneself up for everyone to consume and judge. Why else put yourself in that position? But maybe this is a signpost, marking distance traveled and direction held.

All very interesting stuff to think about in the coming days and weeks.

And of course, I could be over-thinking the whole thing too. It is, after all, a relatively small story. Nothing might come from it at all.

Time will tell.

What a strange adventure this has become.

Plugged In, Jacked Up and Downloaded,
I remain,
Mr.B



EDITED EVEN LATER TO ADD: Well, I just listened to it. The whole thing. The sad, little story about Lisa and Me. And it's terrible. And so sad. To relive those things all over again. There's a moment at the end, when Robert asks Lisa if we're together, living in a house somewhere and she pauses and says, that isn't so and that she's so sad about it. And that she was ready to spend the rest of her life with me. And she still appreciates me. And it broke my heart all over again to hear her say that stuff.

I didn't remember that there was a time and place when she used to feel that way about me. And I am asking myself why that wasn't enough. And how I got here, 8 months later and what she did that was so bad that I broke it off.

Maybe it would help if I held onto the anger and the frustration tighter. If I stockpiled the bad, hurtful memories. But I didn't. And now they're gone. And that RadioLab broadcast doesn't give any voice to them. It doesn't tell me why I chose to end that relationship.

So, maybe it doesn't give an accurate view of who she and I were, when we were together. After that broadcast, we did try to give it another shot. And some things were better. But in the end, the relationship wasn't sustainable. All I DO remember from the second time that we ended things was the moment when we were sitting outside at the corner of Montrose and Lawrence, diagonal from the park where the RadioLab story took place and I felt angry and trapped and humiliated and stupid. Nothing I did made it better. And when I tried to open my mouth, she yelled at me to "Shut up" until I did. And I sat there in the cold, waiting for her to decide to get in a cab to go home, shivering and thinking, "I can't take this anymore."

Everything else after that last fight is a blur. We reconciled that particular fight and then she went away for two weeks with zero contact and when she came back she wanted to fight about that fight anymore and I just couldn't take that. I got out of the relationship and she let me go. I think it's safe to say that we mutually let go of each other.

Again, none of that is in the podcast.

I listened to the whole podcast, from tentative start to inevitable end and I clicked over to Itunes and deleted it. No need to carry that around with me on my ipod. That's a story that I've already heard.

Until next time.
Mr.B